Beat the Chainsaw Pledge, Hereford

HEREFORD GREEN PARTY PRESS RELEASE:

Forty-nine locals vow to stand in front of chain­saws to pre­vent loss of Mead­ow trees.

A capac­i­ty crowd of near­ly 300 peo­ple filled two floors of Here­ford’s Water­shed build­ing last night, to hear a coali­tion of groups talk about the Envi­ron­ment Agen­cy’s poor­ly-designed flood defence scheme for the City. Atten­dees expressed sup­port for the pro­vi­sion of effec­tive flood defences — but also con­cern over the Coun­cil’s lack of vision and lead­er­ship in pass­ing the cur­rent scheme by which estab­lished trees on Bish­op’s Mead­ow will be need­less­ly cut down. Green Par­ty prospec­tive Coun­cil can­di­date Mar­tin Wyness asked peo­ple if they would be will­ing to stand under the affect­ed trees, there­by mak­ing it impos­si­ble for work­ers to fell them. Forty-nine peo­ple expressed a com­mit­ment to stand in the way of the chain­saws in order to pro­tect Here­ford’s won­der­ful cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al her­itage.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic attend­ing the meet­ing expressed sur­prise that local ward Coun­cil­lors were not present to take ques­tions as to why they had not robust­ly chal­lenged the scheme dur­ing the plan­ning process. Dis­ap­point­ment was voiced as to why that process was not pub­li­cised suf­fi­cient­ly for res­i­dents to engage with it effec­tive­ly.

The Green Par­ty hopes that Coun­cil­lors who felt they could not chal­lenge the Envi­ron­ment Agency and DEFRA before, because of fears of los­ing fund­ing, will now find the courage to stand with the coali­tion as it demands that the scheme is rethought.

Green Par­ty prospec­tive Coun­cil can­di­date Mar­tin Wyness asked the Envi­ron­ment Agency rep­re­sen­ta­tive present at the meet­ing: “Can you give an assur­ance that the trees affect­ed will not be cut down in a rush in order to beat restric­tions caused by the immi­nent bird nest­ing sea­son?” The Envi­ron­ment Agency’s reply was that a sur­vey would be car­ried out.

Because it is still too ear­ly for nest­ing, this effec­tive­ly means that the chain­saws can come at any moment, even before the Envi­ron­ment Agency or Coun­cil looks at any alter­na­tive pro­pos­als.

The Green Par­ty is dis­ap­point­ed that Here­ford Lib­er­al Demo­c­rat MP Paul Keetch has until now, not seen fit to ques­tion the scheme prop­er­ly until he saw the scale of pub­lic con­cern. Here­ford needs a dynam­ic and pas­sion­ate Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who will argue the case for keep­ing the mon­ey on the table while we amend the detail of these plans that would do so much dam­age to Here­ford’s his­toric envi­ron­ment. A some­what reluc­tant Mr. Keetch said on radio yes­ter­day “I am assured by the Envi­ron­ment Agency that if there is fine tun­ing that can be done, it will be done”. Let us hope he holds the agency to that promise.

ENDS

NOTES FOR EDITORS

It is quite pos­si­ble that Elgar walked beneath the trees that will be destroyed by this scheme. There is also a memo­r­i­al on the site that says that Elgar penned The Enig­ma Vari­a­tions after see­ing the Cathe­dral organist’s dog fall into the riv­er at this spot.

The coali­tion is ful­ly in favour of a flood defence scheme for the city, but not this one.

RRA Archi­tects showed their alter­na­tive and sym­pa­thet­ic pro­pos­al to the pub­lic meet­ing.

The coali­tion in favour of bet­ter flood defences includes: -

Cycle Here­ford
The Dis­abled Users Access Group
Friends of Cas­tle Green
Friends of the Earth
Fod­der
The Green Par­ty
The Here­ford Civic Soci­ety
RRA Archi­tects
St James and Bar­ton­sham Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion
Water­shed

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please con­tact:
Mar­tin Wyness
Media — Here­ford & South Here­ford­shire Green Par­ty
07809 150344
mediasouth@herefordshiregreens.org.uk
www.herefordshiregreens.org.uk